


The Only Constant

by eternaleponine



Series: Where There Is A Flame [27]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Moving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 05:42:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14805452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: Madi has second thoughts about moving.  What will it take to convince her that change doesn't have to be a bad thing?





	The Only Constant

Clarke poked her head into Madi's room to make sure that she hadn't gotten distracted from packing and found her sitting in the middle of her floor, surrounded by boxes and things that should have been _in_ the boxes by now, clutching her stuffed Sully to her chest and not moving. 

"Hey," she said. "What's wrong?"

Madi looked up. "I don't want to move," she said. 

Clarke picked her way through the mess, nudging a few things aside so that she could sit next to Madi on the floor. "I thought you were excited about moving," she said. "We're going to have our own house, with no one under us to get mad if we walk too heavily or play music too loud, and _two_ bathrooms so we don't all have to share, and Adria will be right next door. You'll be able to go see her practically any time you want!" 

"I changed my mind," Madi said. 

Clarke pressed her lips together to keep from frowning or showing her annoyance. Changing her mind wasn't a choice; they'd already had to negotiate with the landlord to let them stay an extra month after their lease ended without having to sign a new one. They were moving whether Madi liked it or not. "Why?" 

"Because this is home," Madi said. "This is where you brought me when you brought me _home_." 

"Ah," Clarke said. She reached out for her daughter, drawing her in and cuddling her against her chest. "But we can make the new house feel like home, too. _Where_ you live is only part of what home is. Most of home is what's here." She tapped a finger on Madi's chest, over her heart. "Haven't you ever heard the expression, 'Home is where the heart is'?"

Madi shrugged. "Yeah, I guess, but..." She pursed her lips, frowning. "I just like it here."

"I know," Clarke said. "I do too. This was the first place that Lexa and I lived together, and it felt like home from the minute we walked in, before we even had any furniture or anything. Then we got to add you to our family, and it felt even more like home. But you're getting bigger, and this place isn't, and don't you want more room to move around without tripping over each other?" 

Madi shrugged again. "I don't mind it. It's cozy." 

There was something more going on, but Madi didn't seem inclined to just say it. They didn't really have time for a long discussion about this, but Clarke also hated seeing Madi upset. She hugged her again, squeezing tight and pressing a kiss to her head. "Do you know what your Mama said when I got upset that my mom was selling the house that I grew up in?" Madi shook her head. "She said that a house is just a box that you keep memories in. And that when you leave the house, you still get to take the memories with you. Like photos in a—" Clarke stopped. "I have an idea."

"What?" Madi asked. 

"Why don't we take some pictures? I know that Mama already has lots of pictures of us in this house, but we can take some more, and then we can make a collage for you to have at the new house, so you don't forget."

Madi scowled. "It's not about _forgetting_ ," she said. "I just don't want anything to _change_." 

And there it was. There was the real reason for her sudden change of heart. How many times had she packed up her life before, or had it packed up for her? How many times had she been shuffled from somewhere familiar to somewhere completely unknown, having no idea what was waiting for her there? Not as many as some kids faced when in foster care; Emori had said once that she'd only started and finished the school year in the same school a few times in her life. But enough. 

Clarke tipped Madi's face up to look her in the eyes. "Hey," she said. "I can't promise you that nothing is going to change, because I don't ever want to lie to you. But I think the things that will change will only be for the better. The things that are important – reading to you at bedtime, morning cuddles so you don't wake up Madi the Grouch, movie nights on the couch, me making breakfast while Mama does your hair – that's all going to stay the same. Those are all things that we love, and we don't want those things to change any more than you do, so they won't." 

"That's what you _say_ ," Madi said, "but what if they do?"

Clarke rubbed the side of her thumb on Madi's cheek. "If things start changing in a way that you don't like, you tell us. Okay? And we promise that we'll listen, and we'll talk about it, and we'll figure out a way to make it so that we're all happy." 

"You can't make promises for Mama," Madi said. 

"I think she would agree with me on this," Clarke said, "but if you want, we can ask her." 

Madi shrugged, then nodded, and they picked themselves up and went into the kitchen, where Lexa was looking at one of the pots and frowning. "What even _is_ this?" she asked, "and where did we get it?"

"I have no idea," Clarke said, "to either of those questions." 

Lexa looked at Madi. "What about you? Do you know what this is?"

Madi shook her head. "Nope." 

"Sully?" Lexa asked. "Do you know?"

Madi swallowed a giggle. "He doesn't know either."

"Then I guess the question is, do we need it?"

"Just pack it," Clarke said. "It's not that big. We can figure it out later."

"Maybe Murphy knows," Madi suggested. 

"Maybe he does," Lexa agreed. She wrapped it in newspaper and put it in a box. "Are you all packed up?"

Madi shook her head, pressing back against Clarke. "I don't want to move." 

Lexa put down the pan she was holding and came around the counter, slipping her hands under Madi's arms and heaving her up to sit on one of the stools at the breakfast bar. "I never did either," she said. "Every time I got used to a place, we had to move somewhere else. I hated it." Madi nodded. "But then we would get to the new place, and sometimes – not always, but sometimes – I would discover that I liked it even better than the old place." 

"She's worried that things are going to change," Clarke said. "I told her that if things change in a way that she doesn't like, she can tell us and we'll talk about it and figure out a way to make it work so that everyone is happy."

"She promised," Madi said, "but she can't make promises for you." 

Lexa nodded. "That's true, you shouldn't make promises for other people. But I will make you the same promise – if something changes in the new house that you're not happy about, I promise that we will listen, and we will figure it out. Okay?" 

"Mom said that we'll still do movie nights and she'll still make breakfast and you'll still do my hair and everything," Madi said. "Do you promise?"

"I promise," Lexa said. "We even made sure that there's a breakfast bar in the new kitchen, so you'll still be able to sit and talk to us while we cook, or do homework there if you want to, just like you do here."

Madi straightened up a little. "There is?"

"There is," Clarke said. "Echo asked what we wanted in the new kitchen, and we told her that that was very important." 

"And our new couch is a lot like this one, only even bigger and comfier," Lexa said. 

"And there's lots of room for you to play outdoors," Clarke said. "You'll be able to ride your bike!"

"I don't have a bike," Madi said. 

Lexa frowned. "You don't? Are you sure?" 

"Yes," Madi said. " _Adria_ has a bike, but I don't. But I remember how to ride one!"

"Hmm," Clarke said. "I do remember that. I remember thinking that if you were going to be living on the farm together, it would make sense for both of you to have bikes..." 

"I could have _sworn_ you had a bike," Lexa said. "I even have a picture of it... somewhere..." She pulled her phone from her pocket and scrolled through, finally bringing a picture up on the screen and showing it to Madi. It was a bike covered in brightly colored patterns, parked in front of their new house, a helmet dangling from the handlebars. "You're telling me that this isn't your bike?"

Madi's eyes went wide, and she looked from Lexa to Clarke and back again. "Really?" she asked. "Really really? It's mine?"

"It's waiting for you at the new house," Lexa said. "The only thing between you and it is getting your stuff into boxes." 

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Madi said, launching herself at them and wrapping them both in a hug before dashing to her room to finish packing. 

Clarke grinned. "Thank _you_ ," she said. 

"Thank Luna," Lexa said. "She's the one who sent me the picture." 

"If she's that excited about a bike, I can't even imagine how she's going to be when we tell her about the—"

"Shh," Lexa said, pressing a finger to her own lips, and then pressing her lips to Clarke's. "We'll find out soon enough."

* * *

Echo was waiting for them when they pulled up to the new house, keys in hand. She handed them each a set. "Ready to see your new home?"

"I think we'd better give her a minute," Clarke said. Madi had made a beeline for the bike as soon as the car was in park, and she was currently inspecting every detail, practically vibrating with excitement. 

"Can I ride it?" she asked. "Right now?"

"Why don't we take a look inside first?" Clarke suggested. "You can see your new room."

"Luna and Adria had to run to the store for a few things, but by the time we're done looking at the house, they should be back, and you and Adria can go for a ride together," Echo added. 

"Okay," Madi said. She gave the bike a final pat, and then joined them as they stepped inside for the first time. 

"Not exactly a grand entrance," Echo said, "but trust me, entering into a mud room is what you want on a farm. You can access the laundry room straight through that door, so anything especially muddy doesn't ever come into the house." 

"Awesome," Lexa said. "You hear that, Madi?"

"Yes, Mama," Madi said. She slid her hand into Clarke's as Echo showed them the living room and the kitchen, complete with the promised breakfast bar. Madi let go to hop up onto one of the stools, twisting around on it like a queen surveying her domain. "Okay," she said. "This works." 

Clarke grinned. "Glad to hear it." She looked toward a door that opened into another room, which seemed to also connect to the mud room. "What's that?" 

"That's..." Clarke must have been seeing things, because she thought that Echo actually blushed. "Let me just show you." Echo pushed open the door and stepped aside, letting Clarke into the room. "I know you don't always have time, but I thought maybe if you had a space, it would be easier to find the time..." 

It was an art studio. There was a big table and easels and canvases and cupboards and a brilliant glow of natural light streaming through the windows. In one corner there was a sink for rinsing brushes and things, and Clarke had been right when she thought that it might connect to the mudroom, too, because just through the other door was a utility sink if she needed to rinse something bigger. 

"This is... amazing," Clarke said. "Echo, this is fucking _amazing_."

"Swear jar!" Madi said. 

"We don't _have_ a swear jar," Lexa said. 

"In _this_ house we do," Madi said. "I just need to find a jar, and I'm going to make one."

"You've got all the supplies right here," Echo said. Lexa glared, and Echo just smirked back at her. "For the record," she said, "this _does_ mean that all messy arts and crafts projects happen at your house." 

Clarke laughed. "Oh, I see how it is now." 

Echo tapped her temple. "No dummy here." She grinned. "Do you want to see upstairs first, or the basement?"

"I want to see my room!" Madi said. 

"Upstairs it is," Echo said, and led them up. "The room there is the guest room. It's basically empty at this point. That's Madi's bathroom there. Nothing too exciting; I figured you would want to pick out your own decorations. And this," she said, looking down at Madi, "is your room. In case you couldn't tell." 

Clarke laughed. It would be hard to mistake, considering that there was a sign on the door that proclaimed it 'Madi's Room'. Madi reached for the doorknob, then hesitated. "Can I?"

"It's your room!" Lexa said. "Of course you can."

Madi pushed open the door, and then froze in the doorway. As soon as you went in, the first thing that you saw was a wall done in a patchwork of different shades of purple, big squares with no discernable pattern to them, like someone had zoomed _way_ in on something purple in a picture and this was the pixelated result. The other three walls were also purple, but in the palest shade of the grid so that it wasn't overwhelming. 

"Your moms told me you liked purple, but I couldn't decide which purple you might like best, so I told them to just use all of them," Echo said. 

"This. Is. AWESOME," Madi proclaimed, stepping fully into the room and spinning around. All of the furniture was new, since her stuff in the old house had been secondhand and mismatched, and the bed was made with new sheets, but they'd told Echo that they'd just bought her bedspread and everything new last year, so she'd left that part alone. After Madi's near-meltdown that morning, it seemed a wise move; a few familiar things would make it feel more like home. "This is seriously the best room I've ever had, _ever_! I can't wait to put all of my stuff in it! And I can't wait to show Adria! Has she already seen it?"

"Nope," Echo said. "I wasn't going to let anyone else see your room before you did!" 

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Madi said, and it was a good thing that Echo was used to Veelu's tackle hugs, because she was able to brace herself for impact before Madi got to her. "And thank you, and thank you!" Madi added, hugging first Clarke, then Lexa. 

"Why don't you take a look around while we go see our room?" Lexa suggested. "We'll be right back." 

"Okay," Madi said, and went to survey the shelves and the closet, opening the still-empty drawers like she might find treasure in them. 

"We should have had you hide something," Clarke joked. 

Echo smiled. "You're right here," she said. "With your own _en suite_ bathroom, because I know that that was a big thing." 

"Have you ever shared one bathroom between three people?" Clarke asked. 

Echo raised an eyebrow. "Um, yes. Occasionally four. Not for as long as you have, but trust me, I know those feels."

"Right." Clarke opened the door and then took Lexa's hand, leading her into their new bedroom. They'd picked out the paint color – a light blue-gray – and the furniture, but they hadn't actually seen everything together until now. "You know, if the farm thing doesn't work out, you could totally do interior design," she said. 

"Clarke, look," Lexa said, her voice hushed. She pointed to the wall above their dressers, where a giant canvas hung. It was a photo taken on a beach of three figures in silhouette – two tall and one small – as the sun sank below the horizon, so that there was only just enough light to capture the image. She looked at Echo. "Where...?"

"When we were in Hawaii," Clarke said, "the last day. A man came up to me and said he'd seen us watching the sunset, and he hoped we didn't mind that he'd taken a few pictures. He showed them to me and I asked if he could send them to me, which he did." 

"Why am I just hearing this now?" Lexa asked, not mad, only confused. "Where was I?"

"You were already on your way to the room with Madi. I had to stop at the gift shop for something and he caught me. Then we were busy packing and flying and being jetlagged, and honestly, I completely forgot about them until I was going through old emails and found the one from that guy with the pictures attached, and we were already planning the move and I decided to surprise you." 

Lexa just shook her head, then pulled Clarke in and kissed her. "I love it," she said. "And I love you."

"Love you too," Clarke said. 

"There's actually one more surprise for you," Echo said. "In the basement."

"That sounds ominous," Lexa joked. 

"I promise, it's not," Echo said. They collected Madi and headed downstairs. The basement was mostly unfinished, but there was drywall and a ceiling up, so it would be relatively easy to finish it if they chose to. Echo took them to a small room off to one side and motioned for Lexa to open it. 

Lexa stepped inside, and a second later came right back out and looked at Echo, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. "Are you kidding me?" she asked. "Are you _fucking_ kidding me?"

"Swear jar!" Madi crowed. 

"I will pay as much as you want into the swear jar," Lexa said, "and it will be totally worth it." 

Clarke stepped past her into the room, and it took her a minute to realize what she was seeing, because it wasn't anything she'd seen before in real life. Finally, though, it clicked. It was a dark room. There was a counter and trays for chemicals (and jugs of the chemicals up on a shelf, a sink, and a big machine the use of which Clarke didn't know. Across the back wall there was a line to hang prints up to dry. 

Madi squeezed in next to her, looking around curiously. "What is it?" she asked. "What does it do?"

"It's a place for Mama to print pictures," Clarke said. "You know how she showed you some of the ones that she took with real film? The black and white ones? With the stuff in this room, she can actually put them on the paper herself, so that they can be exactly the way she wants them to be, and she doesn't have to worry about someone else messing them up." 

"Whoa," Madi said. 

"Whoa, indeed," Clarke agreed. "Maybe she can teach you how to do it, too."

Madi nodded, and they stepped back out. Lexa still looked like she was in shock, and Echo looked, if anything, sheepish. "I know that maybe I went a little overboard," she said, "but I wanted this place to feel like home. I wanted you to walk in and have it be somewhere that you'd want to stay." 

"You did a good job," Clarke said. "I love everything about it." 

"Me too," Lexa said. 

"Me three," Madi added. "Do you think Adria is home?"

"Let's go check," Echo said, and they followed Madi up the stairs and back outdoors. Adria and Luna were, in fact, home, and Madi seemed torn on whether to show Adria her room or her bike first, but finally decided on the bike, and Adria went to go get hers. 

"We'll have to work out all the details," Echo said, her eyes following the girls as they tore around the big circular driveway, racing each other, "but I thought we could do a rent-to-own contract. So you pay rent on the place, and once you've paid the value of the house, it's yours." She glanced at them. "If you want, I mean. You could always change your mind, and then you would just have been paying rent, and it wouldn't be like a mortgage since there wouldn't be any interest."

Clarke looked at Lexa, who looked at her, and at the house, and at Madi and Adria, who were now accompanied by a giant gangly puppy, and nodded. "Sounds like a plan," she said. 

"Cool," Echo said. "I'll get everything drawn up and we can go from there." She said it like it was no big deal, but Clarke was pretty sure that it was a _huge_ deal, that all of this was the culmination of months of planning and dreaming and hoping, and that now things were all falling into place, and that their agreeing was one less thing for her to expect to go wrong. 

"Thank you," Clarke said. "For doing all of this."

Echo shook her head, dismissing the gratitude as unnecessary. "Of course. If you need any help moving in, just let Lincoln know." She grinned, and they laughed. "Seriously, though, if you need anything while you're settling in, let us know. Not that we aren't also still getting things figured out, but." She shrugged. "Even if it's just to keep an eye on Madi so she's not underfoot while you're moving things."

"We definitely will," Lexa said. "Speaking of... there's the truck now."

* * *

By that night, they had everything moved in, and a lot of stuff unpacked. It helped that their previous apartment had been fairly small; they hadn't been able to accumulate a lot of stuff, so there wasn't that much to deal with. They'd also left behind quite a bit of their furniture, which would be hauled away the next day by an organization that provided housing assistance to those who were getting back on their feet. 

Madi had recruited Adria to help with her unpacking, and from the laughter that had periodically burst through the open door, they'd had a good time deciding where everything should go. Dinner had been pizza and leftover wedding cake, courtesy of Echo and Luna, which they'd eaten in the shade of the front porch at the big house. 

Now they were back in their own house (dubbed 'the little house' even though it was as big as the house Clarke had grown up in, maybe bigger), showered and in their pajamas, and Clarke and Lexa had settled on either side of Madi in her bed. 

"So what do you think?" Clarke asked, stroking her damp hair back from her temple. "Think you might like this place after all?"

Madi nodded. "I do," she said. "I do like this place." 

"Good," Lexa said. She glanced at Clarke, and Clarke nodded. "Because I'm pretty sure that someone would have been very disappointed to hear that you'd changed your mind and wanted to stay at the old house with no yard." 

Madi's forehead furrowed, her eyebrows drawing together. "Who?" she asked. "Adria?"

"Nope," Clarke said. "Someone else. Someone you haven't met yet."

"Who?" Madi asked again. 

Lexa pulled up a picture on her phone. "Him," she said, pointing to one of the furry little bundles on the screen, "or maybe him, or her, or..."

If they hadn't been pinning down the covers on either side of her, Clarke was sure that Madi would have sat bolt upright. "Puppies?!" 

"Only one of them is yours," Clarke said. "We don't know which one yet." 

"And there's still a few last steps before we get to bring one home," Lexa added. "They need to come and make sure that the house is safe for a puppy, and we need to go and take a couple of classes so we know what to do when we bring it home, and to make sure that we're really, really sure that raising a puppy is something that we want to do."

"We do!" Madi said, her eyes still fixed on the screen. 

"But are you _sure_?" Lexa teased. "We could always just get a fish instead..."

"No!" Madi said. "I'm sure! I'm so totally completely sure! I have never been more sure of anything in my life!" She paused. "Except for wanting you to be my family. But even then I wanted to puppy, too!" 

"We could always name the puppy Fish," Clarke suggested. 

"No!" Madi said, giggling. "You can't name a dog Fish! That's just silly!"

"Betta, on the other hand..." Lexa mused. 

"No," Clarke said. She'd meant it as a joke!

"Betta?" Madi asked.

"Like those fish you see in the pet store in the little cups, with the big fancy fins. They're called bettas, or Siamese fighting fish."

"So we _could_ name the dog Fish, only no one would know it but us," Madi said, giggling again. 

Lexa grinned, and if their daughter hadn't been sandwiched between them, Clarke would have pushed her down and wiped that look from her face in an instant, but that would have to wait. "We still have time to think of other names," she said. "Right now the puppies are too little to leave their mom. They'll be ready right around when school ends." 

"Nope," Madi said. "The puppy's name is Betta. It can be for a boy or a girl. I decided."

'I hate you,' Clarke mouthed over her head at Lexa.

'You started it,' Lexa mouthed back.

Maybe she had. But she was also sure as hell going to finish it. From the smirk on Lexa's face, she knew it, and had absolutely no regrets. 

If she was being totally honest with herself, neither did Clarke.


End file.
